Summer 2026 BSJ

The Summer 2026 Baker Street Journal includes these articles:

The Editor’s Gas-Lamp
Dan Andriacco.

An Appreciation of John H. Watson
Re: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Carla Kaessinger Coupe.

Sherlock Holmes Did Not Own a Stradivarius
Clifford S. Goldfarb.

From Cipher to Score
Michael Lionit.

Tell-Tale Signs in “The Dancing Men”
Marino C. Alvarez.

Steel True and Blade Straight
Anna Brindisi Behrens.

A Regiment of Monstrous Women
Pasquale Accardo and Jennifer Accardo.

Sherlock Holmes in Cairo
Nawazali A. Jiwa.

The Devil’s-Foot Root and the Dweller Upon the Threshold
Alexander E. Braun.

“And What Became of the Bust?”
James Leech and Matthew D. Hall.

The Clue of the Untied Shoe-lace
Brian Gibson.

The Commonplace Book

Baker Street Inventory.

Letters to Baker Street

“Stand with me here upon the terrace … “

Whodunit?

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“There’s an East Wind coming, Watson…”

“There’s an East Wind coming, Watson…”

WHICH IS THE BEST TALE of the Sacred Sixty? Which is the best detective story? Which is the most iconic? And which is your favorite?

Your answer may be the same for all four questions—but maybe not.

For me the best tale is The Hound of the Baskervilles, certainly not a minority opinion. There’s a reason it has been filmed so many times. The atmosphere is wonderful (especially, but not only, in the dénouement), Dr. Watson shines (see Carla Coupe in this issue), the opening scene is classic Holmes, and the cast of characters is wonderful.

But I think the first half of The Valley of Fear, which John Dickson Carr once planned to include in an anthology of mystery novels, may be the best Holmes mystery in the classical sense of a whodunit—although there are a lot of contenders for that honor.

Most iconic, in the sense of having everything we expect from a Holmes story, is “The Bruce-Partington Plans.” It has a wonderful opening scene in Baker Street, with both Mycroft and Lestrade, it’s a detective story and a spy story, and Holmes and Watson commit burglary as usual. It even has Holmes being honored by “a certain gracious lady.”

My favorite, though, is “His Last Bow”—an “epilogue of Sherlock Holmes” with a good story and amazing writing. Conan Doyle was a writer of great beginnings and great endings, and this is Exhibit A.

The beginning: “It was nine o’clock at night upon the second of August—the most terrible August in the history of the world.” And at the end, after the famous reference to the east wind, comes the amazing final paragraph that begins: “Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.” I memorized that paragraph when I was about 12 years old and have never forgotten it.

What are your choices in each category?